Live, Love, Latch! is a National Breastfeeding Month (August 1-31) celebration presented by La Leche League USA and hosted by LLL Groups throughout the country. This is the third year for this annual event.
The Global Big Latch On is a World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7) community development initiative that gathers together breastfeeding women at registered locations around the world to all ‘latch on’ (breastfeed) their child or children at a set time and to provide each other with peer support. All the breastfeeding women and children latched on at the set time are counted to create the Big Latch On Record. The Big Latch On started in 2005 in New Zealand by Women’s Health Action and was introduced to Portland, Oregon in 2010 by Small Beginnings Group, LLC.
In 2011, La Leche League of USA worked with Small Beginnings to help spread the Big Latch On across the USA. This year, Lehigh Valley Breastfeeding Coalition and La Leche League of Lehigh County are cooperating to combining these two events into one local celebration.
Live Love Latch! and The Global Big Latch On are events to celebrate breastfeeding, highlight breastfeeding support, and normalize breastfeeding as a part of daily life. Everyone is invited to attend and sign the declaration of support. You do not need to be breastfeeding to be included. Family, friends, doctors, lactation consultants, midwives, businesses, legislators, and anyone else who supports breastfeeding in our community are welcome.
The key goals of The Global Big Latch On and Live, Love, Latch! are to raise awareness of how a supportive community can help nursing dyads breastfeed successfully. The secondary goal is to break the previous year’s record for breastfeeding supporters attending. Last year’s national Live Love Latch! record was 12,611! Last year’s international Global Big Latch On record was 36,502 attendees in 28 countries. In the spirit of the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding, this celebration provides an opportunity to educate everyone about how they can be supportive to breastfeeding families and how this natural way of parenting affects the community as a whole.
Join us on Saturday, August 6th for the Lehigh Valley Live Love Latch and Big Latch On Family Celebration, from 10am to 2pm at Bucky Boyle Park in Allentown.
Counting for the Big Latch On will take place at 10:30am and we ask that participants plan to arrive by 10am. All latching children will be counted as well as mothers who exclusively pump. We invite all Big Latch On participants, families, and supporters to stay for the Family Celebration.
This is a FREE community event featuring: weight checks, breastfeeding help from trained lactation supporters, refreshments, family activities and presentations, the Pink Heals Lehigh Valley pink fire truck, Allentown Health Bureau’s Fruits and Veggies On the Move, and prizes donated by local, national, and international businesses and organizations,
Any businesses interested in sponsoring the event through a donation are welcome to contact us by email, lehighvalleybreastfeeding@gmail.com or download and submit the Sponsor form from our website, www.lehighvalleybreastfeeding.org/LLL-BLO16
Information provided by The Lehigh Valley Breastfeeding Coalition
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